Identification of particular cells within a fuel cell, electric, or hybrid electric vehicle may be desirable for a number of reasons. For example, it may be useful to be able to poll such cells individually to obtain certain information, such as cell voltages, state of charge (“SOC”), state of health (“SOH”), temperature, capacity, resistance, current, etc.
Currently, certain communication standards may allow for hard-coded identification methods (value set in device software). However, such methods typically require unique software and part numbers for each device on the communication network. Other communication standards do not allow for unique identification of slave devices and depend on broadcast communication methods, which may not allow for unique determination of information about each of the slave devices.
The present inventors have therefore determined that it would be desirable to provide methods, apparatus, and systems for identification of slave devices in a network, such as a master-slave network associated with fuel and/or battery cells within a vehicle, that overcome one or more of the foregoing limitations and/or other limitations of the prior art.